graduates, 825, represents for the most part those who have completed the three years' course, the change to a two years' requirement dating from 1910.

Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, N. Y., has not a complete record of the kindergarten department, but reports that 231 students were graduated in kindergarten teaching from 1908 to 1913 and 93 in kindergarten training and supervision.

Demand and supply.-Reports from public normal schools indicate that the demand for kindergarten trained graduates to fill purely kindergarten positions is less than the supply, but that there is an excessive demand for such graduates to fill grade positions. On the other hand, the private kindergarten training schools report that their graduates are in constant demand to fill positions in kindergartens as well as in the grades. ON TABLE 5, CURRICULUM.

Other books on kindergarten.-Kindergarten literature embraces a large number of books, pamphlets, reports, and articles in magazines. The writings of Froebel ordinarily entering into the kindergarten course of study are the Mother Play, Education of Man, Pedagogics of the Kindergarten, and Education by Development. The Mother Play and Education of Man are in general use as textbooks; the Pedagogics and Education by Development are studied in connection with the practical work in gifts and occupations (kindergarten manual activities), or used as reference and collateral readings.

The other books on kindergarten most frequently mentioned in the reports are: Froebel's Educational Laws (Hughes); Symbolic Education, Letters to a Mother, Educational Issues in the Kindergarten (Blow); The Kindergarten (Blow-Hill-Harrison); The Kindergarten in American Education (Vandewalker); A Study of Child Nature (Harrison); Froebel and Education by Self-activity (Bowen); Life of Froebel (Snider); Kindergarten Problems (Teachers College Record).

Other subjects.-The range and variety of these subjects present such an interesting aspect of the kindergarten course of study that they seem to warrant the arrangement of a supplementary table.

TABLE 7.-Schools giving subjects other than those in Table 5.

TABLE 7.—Schools giving subjects other than those in Table 5—Continued.

TABLE 7.-Schools giving subjects other than those in Table 5-Continued.

III. SUGGESTED TWO-YEAR KINDERGARTEN COURSE.

The course here presented is the result of much careful study on the part of the Bureau of Education committee.1 The request for such a course was made at the Springfield meeting of the International Kindergarten Union, April, 1914, and the secretary of the committee was instructed to formulate a tentative course containing certain provisions, to be sent to the committee members. As a result of the suggestions and criticisms made upon this, the course was revised by the chairman and again sent out. This course still met with some objections on the part of a few members, but was approved by the majority. After a discussion of its general features at the Cincinnati meeting, February, 1915, the course was assigned to a special subcommittee to make some further changes, and again sent out. As a result of the last revision it has received few criticisms of any note, and is therefore considered acceptable to the committee as a whole. The course is based upon the following considerations, which were adopted at the Cincinnati meeting:

1. That the Bureau of Education committee should advocate a school year of not less than 36 weeks, in view of the fact that normal schools, colleges, and universities have a year of that length or more.

2. That it should advocate not more than a year of practice teaching in a two-year course. A larger proportion means that this work must be undertaken before students have had the theoretical study that will give them the insight needed for intelligent participation in kindergarten procedure. It means also that the time for the subjects of the course will be too limited for their adequate mastery. This is in accord with the custom of the best normal schools and with the views of those who sent in returns.2 3. That it should advocate not more than one-third as much observation during the first year as there is student teaching during the two years, and that this observa

1 For members of this committee see p. 4.

2 On this point there is not entire conformity of judgment. The advantages of devoting a greater amount of time to practice teaching are voiced by Miss Elizabeth Harrison in the following note:

One year of practice work in a two-year course, divided as planned in the tentative report, robs the student of the observations of the continuous daily growth of the children and of the clear-cut educational continuity of the program with its adjustment to emergencies and incidental interests as they arise. My long experience as a kindergarten training teacher has proved to my satisfaction that there is no one part of the training which awakens interest and vitalizes theoretical study so much as the constant and daily contact of the young kindergartner with the practical problems of applying her theory to real life conditions. The possible injury done to the children by immature cadet teaching may be minimized by two months of observation and discussion at the beginning of the freshman year. If the observation work is organized upon a psychological basis, so that it is not mere haphazard observation, and the report of each student's observation is brought in and discussed with the supervisor, the two months are worth four months of scattered, interrupted, or undirected observation.

Many of our normal schools complain of the lack of sufficient enthusiasm on the part of their students to incite them to go on with further preparation for their work than that required by the State law. I have found the exact contrary to be the case, many students making serious sacrifices not only of opportunities to take good positions in schools, but of many of the comforts and conveniences of life in order to pursue a third year of work, which is not required for a diploma. This is because they have realized their limitations in practice work in the two-year course. This consciousness of need of more thorough preparation has come to them through their being able to see the result of their first year's work in their second year. Cutting down the life with the children in order that more theoretic work may be obtained seems to ignore the truth that it is the vitality of interest which a student takes in a subject that causes him or her

tion be articulated with courses in child study and psychology and be accredited in such courses.

4. That it should advocate an organization of work by which some subjects— psychology, science, English, etc.-can be studied intensively with several recitations a week, and others-art, physical training, manual expression, and musicextended over a longer period of time with less frequent recitations.

5. That the committee should advocate a school day of not more than four periods of recitation work in subjects that require an hour or more of preparation; or of two periods of recitation work when students are doing practice teaching, a morning's practice being considered the equivalent of two recitation periods, even though it may consume more time.

6. That the committee should suggest the amount of work in the different subjects during the course, but leave the exact amount each year and the place of each in the course to the individual school or training teacher.

7. That it should advocate the use of general educational terms for courses when advisable, instead of specific ones intelligible to kindergartners only.

8. That the committee should advocate an increase in the length of the kindergarten course eventually, but that it should direct its first efforts to the making of a more efficient two-year course by suggesting a better balance between the different phases that constitute it, and a better organization of the related subjects as parts of an organic whole. In the meantime the committee should formulate a tentative threeyear course to be discussed in the near future, and presented as soon as conditions warrant.

In addition to these points the committee adopted the following entrance requirements suggested by the Committee of Nineteen:

1. It is universally conceded that an applicant for admission into a kindergarten training school should have completed her eighteenth year.

2. A diploma from an accredited high school is generally required. Kindergarten training schools are advancing to the rank of colleges.

3. The applicant should possess general culture, fine character, and native ability. She should, in addition to these qualifications, have a sympathetic attitude toward children.

4. A degree of musical ability or endowment and fundamental training in music is desirable and is required in the best training schools.

5. A physician's certificate of good health is required.

to master the subject, not the number of hours appointed for the preparation of that subject. Concentration of attention is obtained by the realization of the need of a subject in mind.

It is true that this reduction of practice teaching brings us into closer uniformity with the other grades of advanced school work; but if we have established a more vital way of preparing a young woman for the profession of teaching, shall we give it up because others have not kept pace with it?

Almost all superintendents writing to engage a kindergarten teacher stipulate that she shall be an "experienced" teacher, showing their recognition of the value of much real contact with children. One can not call a student who has had only one year of teaching an "experienced" teacher. I believe the average superintendent estimates that a teacher does not arrive at full efficiency under four or five years of experience. How then can she be placed in a position of responsibility over a whole room full of children with merely one year's work?

Another reason against doing away with one-half of the contact with the actual life-side of our profession is that the morning practice work is a constant appeal to the affections and sympathies of the young teacher, such as does not come from any textbook or theoretical work. And surely we who advocate the newer and higher education of the human race realize that the education of the heart is as much needed as the education of the head. If there is any doubt of this, the present European war would cause the doubt to collapse. That we need more time for general study I heartily agree, but this should come from requiring additional time for preparation rather than from cutting down the most vital part of the preparation now required to establish in the heart and brain of the young women of our nation the tremendous importance and significance of the right mothering of little children.